Forest and brush fires are a serious threat to many home owners during drought months of the year throughout the country. Many such fires have consumed numerous homes and structures with no way of protecting them. Often several hours of warning of forth-coming fires are available to home owners of houses built in heavily wooded or brush covered areas. The home owners in the October 1991 Oakland fire storm would have been able to save many of their homes had they had such a fire protecting cover as our invention.
Many inventions have been made in the field of fire protection but so fare all have had the problems: (a) complicated to make; (b) expensive to manufacture; (c) bad for the environment; (d) will not protect at high enough temperatures; (e) They had idea of art to use without having a useable material to do the job.
Until now carbon fiber cloth has been used exclusively for construction of strong yet light weight devices and structures such as golf clubs and experimental aircraft--But now the high technical material may have a new use as a heat insulator for all sorts of things such as houses threatened by brush fires or personnel coverails to protect fire fighters. Carbon fiber cloth lends itself well to those new uses as a fire protector because it is light weight, strong, non-toxic (at any temperature), easy to manufacture and endures extreme heat without destruction or deterioration of composition.
We have tested carbon fiber cloth for its ability to withstand various temperatures by: (a) applying a flame of a match; (b) applying a flame from map gas torch; (c) applying heat from an acetylene and oxygen torch. None created any detectable damage to the cloth.
Tests conducted on carbon fiber cloth's ability to protect a flammable material from heat and flame had positive results. A peace of dry wood was positioned one inch from and directly behind a single layer of carbon cloth. The cloth was of style 282, 5.7 oz/sq. yd, 42" wide, 0.007" thick, a plane weave and void of any resin or epoxy. A flame from a map gas torch was applied for two minutes and no damage or visible burning of the wood was apparent.
This unique idea of using carbon fiber cloth for fire protection will enhance and allow the use of many other inventions such as: U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,395, fire protection for structures; U.S. Pat. No. 5,279,287, Coverails for protection against flash fires; U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,870, fire resistant lap protection blanket; U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,4.49, fire protection material; U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,055, fire protection materials and methods of making them; U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,173, Process for the inhibition of spread of fire and for protection against effect of fire in burning buildings. All of which depend on the use of a protective cover material that our art will support.